


ten dollars a song

by papyrocrat



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Abuse of Authority, F/M, Sex Work, mentions of child sex trafficking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-16
Updated: 2011-03-16
Packaged: 2017-11-17 15:43:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papyrocrat/pseuds/papyrocrat





	ten dollars a song

 

At first she’d thought she would grieve forever, but she’s one of the first on her floor to awaken from numb shock to their fearful new world. For the moment, the government has forbidden the ships’ captains from threatening evictions or withholding rations, but Charlotte expects the extortion to begin at any moment, and she’s always been one to think ahead.

She’d been a paralegal for years, and she breaks down her marketable skills to try to find sustainable work. She can give interviews, massaging precious information out of nervous, reluctant clients. She can move easily in a professional world to which she’ll never belong. She can be discreet. She adds on her hobbies, and realizes she has one of the most in-demand resumes in the fleet.

She spends the last twenty cubits in her wallet on a makeshift door between the rooms of their suite, some only-moderately-used earphones for Paia, and a shuttle ticket to Cloud 9.

 

*

She makes a few contacts, she decides to call them, and they sip their ambrosia like cocktails. Their curves and curls fall differently on each of them, but they’re all dressed in their last professional casual like they would anywhere else, and they seem like Charlotte herself – apprehensive, one girl twisting a Geminon shell of Aphrodite around her neck; instinctively reserved; already good at looking down gracefully when someone mentions their home world.

She’s not embarrassed, she’s not afraid, but when they go around the table, she calls herself Shevon. She’s always wanted to make a little more of an impression.

 

*

Sometimes they really do want to talk. A few months ago she would’ve scoffed at this, but that was before a world where no one had anyone to talk to. They are all awake now, flinching with the daily traumas and deadly boredom of their new lives.

So they talk. They reminisce about their old jobs, or complain about their new ones, and for a few moments are closer to normal. Once in a while they mention their families. They idly plan to set up a pyramid league, or start a library. To do something.

She likes to think she’d become good at this, bring them some peace and send them away, but this isn’t a world where she can become a therapist. They’re adrift in the stars, their only gravity the false hope of survival, and Charlotte has never been less free.

 

*

She’s become used to her tired smile; their eyes have all adjusted to the dingy light of night and day, and, she thinks, to the faces around them, dread written in where the laugh lines should be.

Even so, the too-young officer next to her seems to have the weight of all the worlds pulling at his shoulders as he turns to catch her gaze. His eyes are like city snow, pale gray and soft and cold as space itself, and his offer to buy her a drink is almost as listless as her acceptance.

This one won’t want to talk. It’s a small relief.

 

*

_Decriminalization_ is a meaningless word in a world without police. The cries of her mother’s women’s movement are but a teasing echo in her memories the day Sofia rattles her doorknob, too miserable even to knock. Charlotte pulls her close, and they sink to their knees on her couch.

Paia peeks around the corner, and her sweetly worried face pulls at their last live nerves. They spend the next hour looking for someone to take their report. The trail goes cold at the officer’s quarters, where the first mate just leers down her dress before he shrugs and asks what they expected.

She starts to think of herself as Shevon.

 

*

One by one, they give up on the fantasy of police. The “protection” Phelan promises is more from his own thugs than any other threat, but he tells her he’s a reasonable man, that he’ll call when she’s needed but she’s a free agent in her own home otherwise.

“I like my girls to be well-kept; successful. You give people what they need. And they need a nice place to –“ his contemptuous gaze somehow finds the light bruise on her left hip “-enjoy their entertainment. So do try to watch the clutter.”

They are all experts on keeping up appearances by now.

 

*

The third time he comes to her, he doesn’t even notice when he calls her _Amanda_.

 

That night, he talks.

 

+

One night, Pentia and Paia are missing from the informal night-care collective the growing number of mothers in their ranks have formed.

She finds them in her quarters. Pentia is bruised and crying; Paia and Amy cling to a pillows, pale and still. This is the way the world ends, with the grotesque absence of a child’s whimper.

She and Pentia pull the little girls between them, and grip each other’s arms across the back of the couch as they search for comforting lies to fill the silence.

 

*

She thinks she remembers a time where she’d have been embarrassed by her scream, but she’s fairly certain that time didn’t include sad but kind men she knew committing murder at point-blank range in front of her eyes. She panics when he comes near her, spills his secrets across the bar like their sour moonshine. His face falls, as if he’s forgotten the deadly weapon in his hand when she can think of nothing else.

She turns her back to walk out. He will never realize it, but her trust is the last thing she gives him.

 

+

Zarek likes to show them off. He re-christens the bar on the Prometheus “ Dionysian,” a dirty, sleazy shrine to his own ego. He calls it a salon, a place for the meeting of minds, the minds of prisoners and hard, bitter Pegasus crewmen.

He’s as good as some of his campaign promises, though, she has to admit: toothpaste and chewing gum flow a little more easily, and the children are safe as long as their mothers toe the line. He replaces Phelan’s goons with his own, and makes just enough of a show of controlling them to remind the girls who’s holding the leash.

 

+

They sit together again, not bothering to remember whether they’d ever even liked each other, and put on a show of a girls’ night out. Tonight they claim their place in the fleet by talking about the election.

“Baltar’s harmless,” says the tallest dancer with the husky voice.

Sofia is Zarek’s favorite because she’s nearly as dark and sardonic as he is, so she’s especially careful to scan the bar through her meticulous lashes before she answers. “That’s the problem.” They’re both right.

 

*

She calls him once and only once, and he doesn’t even make her finish the question before promising a shuttle and the utmost discretion. She’s met by a stone-eyed girl who doesn’t stare down for a wedding ring when she leaves Shevon at his door.

“Can’t you lose your position for doing this? It’s illegal.”

He sets his jaw. “Not on my ship. And it won’t be forever.”

“Is that prophecy?” she teases.

He gives the smallest of smiles, one that pulls at his eyes. She’s never seen it before. “It’s a promise.” He walks her to the sick bay himself.

 

*

Zarek has suggested that a few of the girls “show their support,” his t’s and p’s spiked with menace, at the party on Cloud 9, a Baltar stronghold. She goes with Pentia and Sofia, and they approximate a night off, neither shy nor showy in a dark booth for themselves. She’s laughing over a cigarette when the world goes white.


End file.
